No One Else Will Pull Your Strings
by ArgentNoelle
Summary: It shouldn't have been a surprise that all of the Undertaker's many experiments, bizarre and otherwise, had ended up discovering that the one child would be the salvation of the other. - AU [slight spoilers for ch. 149]


slight, very slight spoilers for chapter 149 maybe, but it's also an AU

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No One Else Will Pull Your Strings

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It shouldn't have been a surprise that all of the Undertaker's many experiments, bizarre and otherwise, had ended up discovering that the one child would be the salvation of the other. Like Sirius, shining bright in the unreachable cold, they had always been meant to be with the other—the twins were perfectly alike, not only in their outer visage, but more importantly, in what lay beneath. They had the same blood. They had—once, had twin souls; indistinguishable to the reaper's senses. It's that void that the the reaper can never replace, no matter how much he tries; that lack of brightness that has been sucked out; it makes Ciel seem oddly like a puppet. But there's nothing that can't be re-created, with enough work, and if he had let himself be deterred by monstrosities he would never have gotten to the almost-perfection he has today.

Just like a doll, Undertaker thinks again, as he watches Ciel stare out of the window in his grand office in the manor; he projects a careless, innocent scene, but the smile when he turns back to the mortician is tinged with mischief, hidden cruelty right at the edges of his petal-pink lips. Just like his father. The eldest was just slightly more like Vincent, and it had only grown more obvious with time.

But in the next instant, Ciel sighs in irritation, seeming more like the one he had known as Earl for three years. "I wish we could have let him escape with his servants," he said. "I wanted to have a real fight with him."

"I'm sure that would have been mighty entertaining," Undertaker says carefully, "but we don't want you losing your strength." To put it mildly. He doesn't want to make Ciel feel too much like he's under the reaper's thumb—has seen how well that turned out with the other one—but there's no way he would have let the child's twin go, taking his precious supply with him. Lifeblood. What an apt name. It is that, and only that, that keeps Ciel from the state of limpness and dessication he had had for so many years in the Undertaker's care, and he doesn't think he can stand to see the boy reduced to that again.

Ciel fiddles with the tea cup on the table, bringing it to his lips and taking a distracted sip. "I want to see him," he says, at last.

"Right this way, Earl," he says, gesturing out the doorway. Ciel sniffs at him a little as he sweeps out before him, but he stumbles a little, dizzily, and Undertaker is, as always, right there to steady him.

"Blast it," Ciel says. "I hate feeling faint like this." Undertaker chuckles a little; but Ciel isn't amused; he throws the old reaper a disparaging glance. Still, he doesn't pull away. As with all of their little games, his contrariness is just for show; and like any doll, he has never known anything else than being handled by Undertaker's sturdy grasp. He's safe that way—just as he should be.

They make their way to the master bedroom.

Though it is the middle of the day, the room, when the door has been pushed open, is draped in shadow, thick curtains pulled to hide the sun and cast the space in gloom. There is only one occupant in the room, and the child in the bed looks dwarfed by acres of sheets, twisted about as though he has been battling them, tossed half upon the floor. Whatever agonies of movement caused that landslide, the child is still, now, huddled in the center of the endless white. When he notices their entrance, his dulled eyes, red from crying, move over them without interest; but he doesn't move, and he says nothing. It pains Undertaker to see that, somehow. He wishes the child could understand that everything is better this way, that he's with his family, where he belongs. But the poison in his mind was harder to cut through than the demon's flesh, and he has resisted all of Undertaker's entreaties. Even those to eat. He wishes he didn't have to use force, but he can't have the boy starving himself—not when it isn't just his own, but also his brother's survival that depends on it.

The boy looks at his brother with tired betrayal in his blue eyes; a sort of numbed acceptance. He won't look at Undertaker at all.

Undertaker hooks the IV up to the boy's arm, and hands the other end of the tube to Ciel, who sucks, delicately, as if at a straw, hopping unceremoniously to the bed beside his brother and tangling their feet together. The younger boy doesn't protest at the invasion of his space, only grabs onto his brother's hand with one of his own. The grip is tight enough to leave marks, and his mouth, where he has bitten into his own lip, sparkles with a ruby drop, to mirror the gently flowing liquid suspended between them. Undertaker stands back, though he wants to hover, to check and see if his boys are all right, to make sure that Ciel isn't getting a little overzealous. He has to trust that the twin still remembers care. And he doesn't want to unbalance the precarious truce, to remind the other boy that he has a reason, still, to fight. Repetition makes even the firiest soul flag. The boy grinds his teeth into his lip so hard that the blood runs down his chin, so hard that he chews up the scabbed-over flesh. It is his only movement. He doesn't speak.

Undertaker looks at his eyes to remind himself that it was all worth it; that it still is. The left eye is still cloudy and fixed, and nothing will erase the sealed devil's mark that still seems to echo back at him mockingly, but the piercing brightness it used to have, that dug like hooks into his skin, is gone. It is nothing but a scar now; no power thrums behind it, fills each atom with infernal strength. Without it, the child is adrift, a marionette with no one to hold him. Well. Undertaker will be there, when the time is right.

He has enough of it, after all.

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End file.
